Research #5: Lexi Alexander’s fight for Females Working in the Entertainment Industry

For my fifth and final piece of research, I analyzed a public blog post regarding the lack of female directors in the entertainment industry, written by Academy Award nominated director Lexi Alexander. Alexander begins the piece by joking that if you are on a platform of social media, you either are funny or get real. She admits that “funny is not an option” and musters up the courage to discuss the issue she has “long observed despairingly from the sidelines”, the lack of female directors working in Hollywood. She uses her platform to detail and call attention to the reasons regarding why women are underrepresented.

Firstly, she blames the media for not covering the lack of women in film and television extensively, besides several articles being written in the past couple of years after several lawsuits and the investigation into Hollywood studios. However, there has been a lack of mainstream journalists who have “the balls to really get to the bottom of the issue”. Secondly, she wants to acknowledge and drill in her audience that there is NO LACK OF FEMALE DIRECTORS, there is only a lack of people who are willing to give women opportunities. There is a huge misconception that men and women do not graduate from film school at equal rates, but this is false. Lastly, she blames gender discrimination in Hollywood on the studios and the males who work in executive positions. Not only are women given less opportunities, but when they are hired to direct films, gender discrimination is reflected in the movie’s budgets, union eligibility, and distribution deals. Women also have no male allies in Hollywood. Men in Hollywood either do not believe in giving women opportunities or are not willing to put up a fight that could sacrifice their status.

Alexander digs deep into why there is a lack of female directors in Hollywood, and hopefully after facing the facts, the entertainment industry will begin offering women more opportunities.